


as the curtain falls

by cassandor



Series: to fight or take flight (away beyond the sky) [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Bamayar, Drinking, Imperial Academy, M/M, Undercover Cassian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 01:26:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11094015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: inspired (see my r1 tumblr) by the idea that cassian was bodhi's crush on bamayar. later requested to add a few chapters about my OC.





	as the curtain falls

**Author's Note:**

> I actually despise drinking culture, but the novelization made me do this (I made sure not to take the sexualization-of-latino-characters route but if it did come off that way I am so sorry & would appreciate corrections).

* * *

 

> _there are no lies in this disguise;_
> 
> _there is no honesty in these truths;_
> 
> _I am not beside you, my love._

* * *

The viewport is suddenly filled with swirling orangey-gold atmosphere as the ship drops out of hyperspace. Bodhi can feel his heartbeat quicken at the sight.

Bamayar was every pilot’s favourite planet. At least, the ones that Bodhi knew. 

Each had their own reasons. The gas giant’s upper atmosphere was dotted with spaceports, casinos, bars, and the like. It was a lively hub of entertainment located at the intersection of several major transport routes. A haven for a travel-weary Imperial pilot – or pilot-in-training. 

But the prospect of winning a few extra credits wasn’t what caused Bodhi’s heart to thrum with excitement. His fingers sweep over the console, engaging the landing procedures, but his mind is already on the artificial surface.

“Fantasizing already?”

Bodhi looks up at his co-pilot, fellow Academy student, and best friend. “Shut up,” he says, angry tone failing to mask the touch of a smile on his lips.  

Sidhu hums, drumming his fingers on the side of his seat. “Alright,” he huffs, “Then don’t come running to me asking for pickup lines.”

“As if yours have ever worked.”

“As if _yours_ have ever worked.”

Bodhi glares at him. “At least I’ve never been slapped.”

“Ouch,” Sidhu pouts, touching his cheek as if it still stung from his last endeavor. “That hurt.”

“Besides,” Bodhi continues, “He’s different.”

“Really?” Sidhu rests his chin on his palm and looks up at him. “How so?”

“This feels… _real_. Important. Not…” Bodhi sighs.

“Don’t get sappy on me.”

“I’m not!” Bodhi sits up, almost knocking over his now-cold cup of caf. “I’m not,” he repeats, quieter this time, catching the cup and setting it down. “But it’s true.”

“You don’t even know his name. It’s just attraction. Like everyone else.”

“ _Ananya_ was just attraction,” Bodhi huffs, cringing at the spotty memory of strobe lights and drunken kissing.

Sidhu snorts. “What makes this guy any different? Don’t tell me you aren’t attracted to him, I’ve seen your heart-eyes.”

“It _feels_ different. Not like you’d understand, Mr-flirts-with-every-human-he-sees,” Bodhi snaps.

“Ouch, you’re really going in for the kills today. Well, whatever you say,” Sidhu sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Are you headed straight to his bar then?”

Bodhi raises an eyebrow at him. “Should I?”

“I thought you weren’t going to ask me for advice, Mr. Romantic.”

Bodhi glares at him. “Shame on me for asking then.”

“You should go,” Sidhu smirks. “It’s our second last trip here before graduation. You should ask him now.”

“I thought you weren’t going to advise me.”

Sidhu sighs theatrically. “What can I say, I just want you to be happy.”

“Now _you’re_ being sappy,” Bodhi replies, corners of his mouth turning up into a smile.

* * *

Bodhi cautiously makes his way past the thick crowd of party goers, making his way to the bar – to the bartender. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, louder than the music, beating louder and louder as he draws nearer.

 _There_.

He pulls up a seat, perching on the edge of the stool, drumming his fingers on the table to hide the anxiety blooming in his chest. _Kriffing stars_ , he hadn’t even thought of how to start the conversation.

The bartender turns around from the array of drinks to face Bodhi and suddenly everything stops. (Sidhu was right. He _was_ getting sappy.)

“Oh, hey. Nice to see you again….” The bartender’s voice trails off in a question, looking up from the glass he was cleaning at Bodhi through his thick eyelashes, a sly smile on his face. 

“B-Bodhi. You can call me Bo,” Bodhi replies, kicking himself for stuttering, desperately clinging on to the scraps of resolve he had left. “I-I uh, I never asked you your name?”

The bartender grins to Bodhi’s dismay, brown eyes sparkling. “I thought you’d never ask. Akos. Akos Willix.”

Bodhi chews at his lip, trying the name _Akos_ under his breath.

“So, what’d you like to have, Bo?” Akos says, setting the glass on the counter. 

Bodhi immediately regrets giving Akos his nickname, feeling the heat rush to his face. “I, uh, hmmm. I’m trying to stay sober this time,” he grins.

“Ah,” Akos looks thoughtful. “We just got some new juices. Want to try one? They’re usually for mixing, but I can let it slide for you.”

Then he winks at him.

Bodhi’s cursing himself. Why were crushes a thing? What was he, 12? 

(Akos had nothing in common with the long-forgotten classmate whose twin braids jostled whenever she turned to sneak a peek at Bodhi…’s friend.) 

“A-ah yeah thanks. That sounds good. Don’t get in trouble for me, though.” He attempts to rearrange his face into a casual smile, wondering if it looked like a grimace.

“Anything for a favourite,” Akos grins and turns to make the drink. Bodhi almost collapses with relief.

He’s still mesmerized by the way Akos works, how he hums while his fingers dance across the various cabinets of drinks, the way he lights up when he finds the perfect one. The way he slightly licks his lips while pouring the brightly coloured liquids together, the smile - _that_  smile - and nod he gives every patron he makes eye contact with. 

Heart still thundering, Bodhi tries to form a coherent plan. 

What was he going to say? _Hey there, I barely know you, but every time you smile my heart does a backflip –_ he groans, putting his face in his hands.

“Are you _sure_ you didn’t want anything alcoholic?” Bodhi looks up when Akos lightly taps his arm, a mischievous look on his face.

“I, uh, yeah, I’m sure.” Bodhi nods, as if to reassure himself. “Yeah. Um, also,” _Say it while you have the nerve!_  

The words rush out before he can stop them. “I think I’m in love with you.” 

Bodhi immediately looks down at the drink in Akos’ hands, missing the split-second look of guilt and horror crossing Akos’ face. When Bodhi does look up, he’s met with a sympathetic smile instead.

_Uh oh._

* * *

“Bo,” Akos says gently, fingers curling around the glass. “I think you’ve mistaken me.” 

Bodhi can feel his heart plummet into his shoes, but manages to keep a smile - a wavering one, but still a smile - on his face. “A-ah, i-it’s okay, I mean, I-I guess people mistake your friendliness for s-something else all the time, huh.” 

Akos looks at him, and Bodhi catches himself marveling at the depths of his eyes. A look of slight amusement mixed with sympathy.

(Bodhi could’ve also seen guilt, heartbreak, and self-loathing. But Akos was a perfectionist, and his mask never slipped.) 

Instead, Bodhi feels his own disgust and embarrassment.  _He’s just doing his job, chatting up customers, and now you’ve made him uncomfortable_. After all, Akos was young (it seemed lithe, graceful, _beautiful,_ Akos was about awkward, reckless, _oblivious_ Bodhi’s age) and of _course_ his infectious smiles would be mistaken for romantic interest.

Especially by people who needed someone who’d listen. Like Bodhi.

Akos had a charm unlike anyone Bodhi had ever met. A way of knowing when to speak and when to listen: soothing words that healed a lifetime’s worth of wounds, nodding serenely in between, eyes brimming with polite concern. It had taken Bodhi this long to realize he was just doing his job. Just making patrons want to come back for more. 

Like him. Just another bunch of credits in his pocket.

Bodhi shakes his head slowly, looking at the table. “I-I’m s-so sorry.” He gets up to leave, stool squeaking on the tiles, only stopping when he feels Akos’ grip on his arm.

“It’s okay.”

His eyes are still fixed on the table and he misses the falter in Akos’ facade. 

Akos squeezes his arm. “If you want,” his voice lowers, “We can meet when my shift’s over.”

Now Bodhi looks up at him and is surprised by the sight of Akos’ soothing smile, eyes glittering with mischief.

“You wouldn’t be the first to ask.” His voice is alluring, melodic, dripping with nectar. Poison. 

Oh.

  _Oh._

Bodhi’s eyes widen in horror. _Was he…?_ His heart leaps into his throat. _No._

Bodhi was reckless. He and his friends still hung in that space between adulthood and teenagehood. He’d had his moments, drunk or not. This wouldn’t be anything new.

But _this_ is not where he wanted to end up. Not with him. _Well, not this quickly._ (maybe that was a lie, but this was the truth: 

 _ **Not like this**._ )

Not when Akos was implying a lack of genuine feelings, or worse, a price.

Disgust crawls up his spine, and Bodhi isn’t sure if it’s directed at himself or at Akos, who was too pretty and kind for any of this to be real.

He should’ve known.

He doesn’t know what to say, only shakes his head and yanks his hand out of Akos’ grasp, mumbling “I’m sorry,” as his pushes through the suffocating crowd of revelers, gasping for air when he finally stumbles out of the door.  

* * *

Only now did Bodhi appreciate the sheer amount of bars on Bamayar.

It had taken Sidhu all of three seconds when he returned to the ship to realize something had gone wrong.

“Karking stars, Bodhi, he turned you down, didn’t he?”

When Bodhi nods Sidhu shakes his head, looping his arm around Bodhi’s shoulders. “I’ve never seen you this upset over a rejection before. Well, there’s nothing a few drinks won’t fix.”

Bodhi raises an eyebrow at him.

“Come on, what else were you expecting when you came looking for me? Besides, I’m not going to spend the rest of today coddling you like a baby. I haven’t gone on-planet yet!”

* * *

Sidhu rounds up their friends and together they walk in and stumble out of the planet’s cheapest bars, losing people every time.

Somewhere along the way Bodhi cracks.

“This was  _different_ ,” he whines over a glass of Force-knows-what. It was numbing, and that was enough.

“You’ve said that twenty times already,” Mayve groans.

Sidhu rolls his eyes at her. “Let him get it all out. I’m the one who has to deal with the aftermath.” He turns to Bodhi. “How was he different?”

“This was  _different_.”

“Fark. That’s it, I’m leaving,” Mayve huffs and disappears into a crowd of dancing beings.

“There, now you’ve lost the entirety of your audience. It’s just me and you now.”

“He was dif-“

Sidhu bites back a groan. Bodhi looks up at him, chin resting in his hands.

“Mera jaan,” he says, eyes wide. Sidhu raises an eyebrow.

“Mera jaan,” Bodhi continues. “Sometimes Basic is lacking. ‘Specially when it comes to love.”

Sidhu snorts. “It’s always lacking. What do you mean?”

“Mera jaan,” Bodhi repeats. “My life. My love. My darling. I thought he was different.” He taps the table after every pause.

 _Ah._  “Well I guess he was, I’ve never seen you ramble this long about a person before.” Sidhu swirls the straw in his drink. “Usually you’ve either made out with someone else or passed out by now. Ooh, or that one time you started rambling about all your past crushes.”

Bodhi glares at him. “You make me sound shallow.”

Sidhu softens. “You aren’t.”

Bodhi mumbles something.

“What?”

“He made me feel like it.”

Sidhu’s face scrunches up in concern. “Wait-what? What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t say anything, just…” and Bodhi explains what had happened.

Usually Sidhu would’ve immediately teased Bodhi for falling for a kriffing _escort_  of all people. But he wasn’t that cruel. Not when Bodhi looked sadder than someone who had lost a beloved pet and their entire bank balance in one day. 

(He wasn’t kind enough to let Bodhi forget about it later.) 

“Well,” Sidhu offers, “Let’s really pull out all the stops so you can forget that kriffing son of a-” 

“It wasn’t his fault,” Bodhi’s voice is muffled by the table. “He was just doing his job.”

“Trying to earn extra credits, you mean.”

“No,” he sits up. “The look on his face. He thought I didn’t notice.”

(The look in Akos’ eyes was suggestive, and made Bodhi recoil. Not because of the implication, but the sadness that was carried within them.)

“What do you mean?”

Bodhi sighs. “Fine. It was for the extra credits. But he looked like it was his, I don’t know, _duty_  or something. Maybe he has a family to feed and no other way, maybe-” 

“That’s it,” Sidhu says, exhausted. “Enough.” He gets up, pulling Bodhi along, disappearing together into the crowd of dancers.

Bodhi has one last thought before he drowns in the pulsing music. 

He and Akos were’t all that different. Only he had sold his planet to the Empire. 

* * *

Bodhi wakes up the next morning, the bitterness of the previous night lost in a foggy, hungover mind. 

“Better?” Sidhu asks, rolling over.

Bodhi nods, throat dry. “I don’t even remember what happened.”

Sidhu’s voice is muffled by his arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll remind you the next time you annoy me.” 

Bodhi groans, despite the grin on his face. 

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

Akos finds himself staring at his reflection in the mirror of his small ‘fresher. He wipes away at the water dripping down his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

He blinks away the water.

The alluring Akos Willix is gone, and Cassian Andor, hardened Rebel spy, stares back.

He shakes his head. Bodhi was a misstep. He should’ve known better. Not that a low-level cargo pilot would have known anything useful for the Rebellion…  but he shouldn’t have tried so quickly. He might’ve lost potential intel, but at least the pilot would’ve trusted him. Might’ve come back, even. Now he was a liability.

Everything was gone. Just because he didn’t let go.

Why didn’t he?

Disgust settles in the bottom of his stomach.

Had he wanted something more than intel? Something for himself, perhaps?

An image of the endearingly awkward pilot swims in his vision.

He swipes at his face again.

He blinks, vision blurring.

Cassian Jeron Andor, the boy who lost everything but hope, stares back.

Self-loathing rises like bile in the back of his throat. He presses his hand to the mirror, which threatens to shatter at his touch. He couldn’t afford to have his feelings leak into his false identities. It would only hurt, hurt him, hurt the Rebellion, hurt others. (Not like he’d already hurt himself. He thought he had nothing left to lose.)

He thought he’d controlled his emotions. But he was wrong.

He would have to lose himself entirely. For the Rebellion’s sake.


End file.
